Anna Rose

my life, my thoughts, my feelings.me.

[blooming-anna-rose]

alone, I am sitting on the stairs that I’ve ran to in my sisters neighborhood since I was 17, and now I am almost 24. Every time, I come as a different person but scared in the same way, unsure if I am cut out for this life and praying to find a way to heal from this world.

and this time I am praying for my love to stay, and for us to make it through this storm waging around us.

for me to be able to walk hand in hand with the person I left at home to figure this out and to be able to come back to him.

because last night he left wish his bags packed

and I threw up at the thought of him never coming back

I couldn’t sleep

the night was too silent

our bed too empty

and I cried staring at the bags he left packed

so I looked for studio apartments on my phone at 3 am

pretending to try and imagine my future without him

and failing

and reaching out. one feeble attempt to understand. and he responded

and he came home

and I left to my sisters house

because we need time

two people still trying to figure their lives out

and how to do it with each other

it’s no small feat

and love is good, that I believe.

but we also are flawed, children in our hearts who were wounded in the way their parents showed love

and are trying everything they can do be different.

a noble attempt.

an ernest drive to be good to one another.

and I am back to the staircase, with a lump in my throat, blinking back tears hoping that I can come home to him.

- N.C. // praying again

[blooming-anna-rose]

“and every June, I feel it in the air. The sense of summertime, the feel of forgetting the winter, the reminiscence of the year past. Although January is when the year begins, for me it has always felt as if it restarts in June. The hope in me remains alive and takes another breathe as I look back on the year since last June. I think how I said once, to someone I know so well but no longer speak to, that a year can bring you so much. That if you remain open, you never know what good time can bring. New people, new places, new memories. New lessons. And although it can also close doors, bring endings, goodbyes, such is life. Beginnings and endings. And somehow it is June again, two Junes since I said goodbye to them, I feel it. I can be reborn, once again.”

- n.c. // june

[blooming-anna-rose]

5/2/2023

I am a runner. I woke up this morning, with many things on my mind but an hour of spare time in my schedule. And I couldn’t waste it. I got my shoes on, still half asleep, and I ran in the morning air, the may rain washing me clean. My body knows the steady rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement, and lifting a second later, like the back of my hand. I know running and running knows me. Mile after mile, I felt my mind ease and a peace settle. I took a deep breath and felt new again, the may rain helping my change take place. I felt old and ready but scared, and I am pretty sure that is what change is supposed to feel like.

-n.c. // may rain and runs

[blooming-anna-rose]

“and in the blink of an eye it has been years since I felt as if I had lost everything it has been years of hard lessons of tears of mistakes and growth and sunny days and best friends I feel everything these days I don’t suffocate my feelings I don’t feel like I’m drowning anymore my head is clear and I can see the waves idly flow past in front of me the wind feels soft in my salty hair and the sun kisses my shoulders my freckles meet the sky as I look up and I know I am okay and I know I am going to be okay and I know I am going to live a life full of love. I still have nightmares and sometimes I can’t sleep I still am afraid of growing up I am afraid of losing what I’ve known all my life but life is a constant act of letting go and I know I can gain more in a year than I can ever imagine. I have so much trust in myself and I know it’s okay to not know where I’ll be in a year because I have myself I have my friends that have become my family I have my health and peace I have a direction to grow so I look up and I say thank you with a smile on my lips and tears in my eyes.”

— n.c. // Morro Bay (via blooming-anna-rose)

[blooming-anna-rose]

“And I’ve found my home. My place where I am at peace. The sound of his voice and the feel of his hands surrounding my body. My idea of a perfect night is wrapped up on the couch with him and my dog, laughing for hours at anything and nothing. And when I leave, I leave for a weekend to see old friends, to run a half marathon that i’ve been training for months for, I can already feel the homesickness in my heart. He has made me feel like a kid again, going away for a night for a sleepover and wanting to call him to take me home. And I am so grateful. I am so grateful it is so hard to leave, because how luck am I.”

- n.c. // i’ve been searching for him my whole life.

[blooming-anna-rose]

20 lessons to remember in 2020

1. If the people you thought you could count on, disappoint you and aren’t there for you through the good and bad, through the easy and hard times, you can say goodbye. Let them leave. Other people will show up.

2. Not everything is how it seems, you never see the full picture. Keep that in mind before judging, because most people don’t share the pain they go through.

3. You might have built walls to protect yourself, but they can also trap you. Don’t let them keep you from being vulnerable. There is value in being able to be hurt.

4. Being human means breaking, breaking over and over again. I don’t really know if it ever ends. 

5. When you do break, when you fall apart, let others catch you. Don’t be afraid to trust others. You never have to be alone in your suffering.

6. Sometimes you will cry alone in your car. I’m sorry.

7. Not everyone will like you. It’s hard to accept but remember that you matter whether or not they like you.  Don’t let them determine your worth, your happiness.

8. Happiness is not the goal of life. You can pursue it, and never find it. Pursue a good life. A hard life. One where you make the right decisions, despite the pain you will go through. Happiness will come as a byproduct of a life well lived. 

9. A furry friend really can make a difference. They can make hard times just a little bit easier.

10. Laugh. Tell jokes. Be silly. It is one of the best types of medicine. Sometimes the choice is to cry, or to laugh. Laugh.

11. Stay out late. Be spontaneous. Make memories. Soon the people you made memories with, will leave. But memories are there to stay.

12. Wake up early. Thirty minutes of quiet in the morning is so worth it. The silence as the sun rises can change what state your heart is in. It can go from pain and grief to simple gratitude. Wake up early.

13. Be honest. No one respects a liar. No one trusts a liar.

14. Sometimes you will hurt the people you love the most. Sometimes they will hurt you. But keep giving second chances. Everyone fails.

15. Love. Be loving to whoever you see. You never know how much someone needs it. 

16. Walk. Run. Move. Somedays, the only way to get out of your head is to go outside. Try it.

17. Don’t hide from the pain. You can grieve. Don’t forget to ask for help when you need it. Most people will want to.

18. Call the important people. Talk for hours, listen, connect. Don’t lose touch with them.

19. Sometimes thinking about the past feels unbearable. It fils you with pain. It hurts. Remember the past, try to heal, and then think of the future. Keep going. Keep doing the best you can. That’s all anyone asks.

20. This isn’t forever. 

[blooming-anna-rose]

“Early mornings are always when i’ve find the best version of me. Since high school, I woke up 2 hours early, strange for a a teenager, yet I found my peace in the stillness, in the solitude. When most aren’t awake, when the world is still silent and the sun has begun to climb to signal the start, I find the version of me that is grateful and hopeful and can’t imagine a world where what she has isn’t enough. The version of me that surges with love for the world and the people that I get the privilege of knowing in it. The version of me that looks around with kindness and compassion in her eyes and heart and is good, that hasn’t been corrupted by the disappointment or disease of the day that dooms her or drags her into a version she doesn’t want, a version she fights with every fiber of her being. The morning is when I feel whole, and everyday I fight to keep that version of myself.”

- n.c. // whole

[blooming-anna-rose]

I wake up with a migraine and alone in my bed I share with my love although he is sleeping in Mexico that morning. So I get up, much too early on a Sunday morning, and I go downstairs, clad in his shirt and my underwear and made myself a cup of coffee. I lay on our couch and start at the puzzle I began and try to make my brain stop hurting by my shuffling the peices around, filtering the side pieces from the middle. I make breakfast and go to the gym and the place is empty so early on a Sunday morning. I give it my all and by 10 am i’m sweating. I go home and shower and strip the sheets and do the laundry and clean the shower. I pack a lunch and call my love and I drive to the beach to go shopping and listen to my audio book as I tan. I text my best friend and make plans to hangout that evening after getting some more of my thesis revisions complete, and I smile and blast music knowing my life is so rich. I am so completely happy with my life today - and it isn’t a little thing to enjoy my life - life isn’t meant to always be working towards something else. I smile and sing to songs that I listened to a year ago with the hope of keeping the love I met. And here I am today, on the way to the beach and smiling knowing he is coming home to our apartment tomorrow. And I am so happy. So happy. because at 22 I made my dreams come true - life is never easy, but it is good.

- n.c. // i’m happy today

[blooming-anna-rose]

““And it is up to me, to not make the same mistakes as my mom. She tells me, when I find time to call her in the lonely spaces that come upon me, “Honor god and find a good husband.” The best advice she has to offer, and I accept it. I accept her advice, from my mother who wants nothing but the best for me and has taken pain that wasn’t what she deserved, all to protect me. I see her weary soul in her eyes and I hear it in her voice, and I want to turn back time for her but I am unable because I am only a 19 year old daughter in an unfair world. So instead, I turn over her words, over and over in my head like chewing gum in my mouth because they stick to the corners of my mind instead of my mouth and I can’t seem to let it go. I keep it in my mind because I see her and I see my family and my siblings and their rage and loneliness and resentment that they try and try to shed before it poisons them just like it somehow poisoned my father into becoming a person made of hatred, and I know, I know my mother has put her hope onto me to be nothing like any of it. I am the last child, and she has let me know what the title of youngest means. This is my responsibility.“”

— n.c. // how do I find love that looks like nothing I know.

[blooming-anna-rose]

“I lie awake in my bed, listening to my younger roommates yell and enjoy themselves in drunken laughter. I think about my love a few too many hundred miles away and I think about my family, growing up and away too quickly. My back aches and my eyes water and I’m exhausted and I try to feel okay. I welcome the darkness to seep behind my mind and take me away, but I wake through out the night. I toss and turn and wonder if I might die and somehow I make it to morning and I wonder how I will sleep tonight.”

-n.c. // i miss my mom.

[blooming-anna-rose]

12/12/24

i used to be terrified of flying

i once was 11 holding my big sisters hand during take off and landing, the shaking and turbulence making my grip as hard as I could. I began flying on my own by the time I was 14 to see my sister up north, and I couldn’t even lift my carry on over my head. Kind strangers traveling with their families would take pity on me and help. I don’t talk to that sister anymore, and now I can lift my baggage over my head easily. Eventually I stopped shaking as the plane took off, and landing felt second nature. I flew with my best friend in college once, and she was scared of flying. We were 20 and I held her hand the whole hour flight to our college town. We don’t speak anymore. I flew across the world and spent 3 weeks waking up before the sun to catch flights and making connections and mastering the language that travelers spoke, flight details and terminals and shortcuts and check ins becoming instinctual. I flew back to the states and learned how to fall in love, to speak another language. I am flying today to see friends that have flown to see me in the past 3 months, and I understand that overcoming fear is worth it for the people you love, that I am still scared of heights and the 11 year old in me still holds my big sisters hand in my mind, but I am now grown and I cannot pretend that I do not trust myself, that I can rely on myself to get to the ones I love.

- n.c.

[blooming-anna-rose]

“I am so rich. Richer than 17 years old me would’ve ever expected. I am rich in love, in friendships, in relationships, in health, in gratitude. I have the most amazing people in my life, and I know when one day I no longer have breath in my body, I will have known what it means to be alive. It means to love and be loved. 17 year old me kept my hope, kept hoping that things would get better. She kept one foot going in front of the other and somehow ended up becoming me. Words cannot express how proud I am of her going when she wanted to die. Because things did get better, and now I am grateful to wake up everyday.”

- n.c. // thank god

[blooming-anna-rose]

“He saw me have a panic attack for the first time yesterday. It was sunny, and we were at the beach and he saw me break. I couldn’t catch my breath and all I felt was fear I wouldn’t be able to get rid of the pain in my chest. He saw tears in my eyes and my mouth quivering and held me, he helped me breathe and I was able to take a full breath. I’ve never known someone who I felt safe enough to let see me, for better or worse, strong or weak, until I met him. And I think I never want to let him out of my sight, as long as there is breath in my lungs.”

-n.c. // i caught my breath, and the love of my life

[blooming-anna-rose]

“I feel so lucky to love him. He has made my life better in ways I never knew possible. He is sweet, funny, witty, and unexpected. He loves me so well, I never thought this great of a love would find me. He surprised me in the best way, and I could cry thinking about how incredibly and stupidly in love I am. Is it crazy to know that I want to spend the rest of my life with him already? Can you know that under a year? I don’t believe in soulmates but I believe he would be mine if I did. He is my first love and I want him to be my only.”

- n.c. // I never thought this great of love was meant for me

[blooming-anna-rose]

12/31/24

“I know love is hard and I know he loves me but my history reminds me that I have had people tell me they love me and still hurt me and I’m afraid I’m afraid every time I leave him that it’ll be the last time. I’m afraid that he will see me and one day wake up and realize I’m not the one and I know it’s not true. I know, I know he is everything and more but. But I get scared. And then I remind myself, I need to not lose sight of me. I am everything and more too. Sometimes I think my capacity to love is so overwhelming and consuming I forget that the strongest love I have is because of who I am. I love who I am and part of that is how much I love. I am where my love for others begins and I am not going to lose sight of that.”

- n.c. // I’m afraid but strong

[blooming-anna-rose]

I haven’t written about my life lately. Not like I used to, when I was 16 in my bedroom, looking to be understood by others, craving connection and expression. Now I write when I need to understand myself, I write briefly and objectively every morning. But I was wondering if I still had it in me today, to be vulnerable and share it with the world. And I think I do. I’ve been writing for 8 years, and this is a part of me that has never not been important to me. I value it more than anything, it has been a cornerstone for making me who I am today, for keeping me here. So, today sitting on the couch in my college house with my roommate silently both listening to music and enjoying the peace, I am writing. I am looking at myself and trying to find the poet that I used to be. I hope that I never lose this part of me.

- n.c. // poet in me

[blooming-anna-rose]

I hope you know you have helped me become more of the person I’ve always wanted to be. I think that’s a reason I love you so much. You make me a better person, and you make it easy to be yours. I’ve recently realized that my heart is yours, and that was one of the most terrifying thoughts because I realized that meant my heart is yours to be broken if you ever wanted to. But the thought was fleeting. I called you, and I heard your voice and I felt the lightness that I felt the whole time I was falling for you. I know I shouldn’t fear the unknown when I am with you, and I’m trying to unlearn what the people I’ve loved before have taught me. I’m trying to not believe the voices in my mind that tell me to close off, that if I am vulnerable, I am going to get hurt. And for you, I choose to fight them, I am stronger because of you. I wake up and fall asleep knowing I love someone special, and I wake up and fall asleep knowing that I will never choose to tell you goodbye.

-n.c. // I hope you know